Legal Stuff

Feb 19, 2014

MUSIC NEWS - 3 Doors Down bassist, Todd Harrell, faces a driving under the influence charge after his arrest Tuesday in Mississippi. Police found Harrell "slumped over the steering wheel" of a vehicle stopped at an intersection in D'Iberville, MS, a police statement released Wednesday said.

Harrell, 42, "showed signs of impairment and was arrested and charged with 2nd offense DUI," police said. The rocker was charged with vehicular homicide in Nashville, TN, last April after his speeding car allegedly clipped a pickup truck, sending it down an embankment and killing the driver, according to a Davidson County, TN, sheriff's spokesman.

Jun 09, 2013

MUSIC NEWS- Who are the Stone Temple Pilots? For one, the remaining members of Stone Temple Pilots say they are and they will not disband regardless of the legal actions by former singer/band menber Scott Weiland who asked a court to force them to break up. The band members say it was their legal right to kick him out because of his "destructive behavior," their lawyer said this week.

"He's out of the band," Skip Miller, the attorney for the 1990s alternative rock band told the press, citing the quartet's 1996 legal partnership agreement that allows a majority of band members to vote out an existing member. The agreement is said to also allowed the majority to retain the intellectual property rights to the band's name. "The three of them voted (Weiland) out for a lot of reasons," Miller said. "They don't want to play with him anymore. He was showing up hours late and had crazy, destructive behavior."

Weiland, known for his growling vocals and dyed red hair, became a symbol of the early 1990s grunge era, was fired from the band back in February. The three remaining STP members sued him last month for using the band's name to promote his solo concerts. Mr Weiland, 45, counter sued last week alleging that the group's three other members; Dean DeLeo, Robert DeLeo and Eric Kretz, secretly and wrongfully conspired to kick him out of the band.

The singer, who promoted a solo concert in Los Angeles last week featuring music from the group's 1992 album "Core" and 1994 album "Purple," has also asked the court for $5M in damages as well as a ruling to legally dissolving the partnership agreement. "How do you expel a man from a band that he started, named, sang lead on every song, wrote the lyrics, and was the face of for 20 years, and then try to grab the name and goodwill for yourselves?" Weiland's lawsuit said. "Knowing the value and goodwill associated with the Stone Temple Pilots name and that they would be unlikely to achieve any commercial success without it, the other members secretly met on numerous occasions ... to wrongfully expel Weiland from the band and seize for themselves the valuable Stone Temple Pilots name and associated goodwill," the suit adds.

The singer had no additional comment, his spokesperson said. The remaining band members have performed live concerts recently as the Stone Temple Pilots with a new singer, Chester Bennington, who is also the frontman of Linkin Park.

Aug 05, 2012

MUSIC NEWS - Ex-J. Geils band members are being sued by bandleader, John Geils as he claims they are unlawfully using the band's trademarked name for an upcoming tour without him and interfering with his business activities. The lawsuit claims that band members Richard Salwitz, Danny Klein, Peter Wolf and Seth Justman had "planned and conspired" to exclude Geils from performing with them under the J. Geils Band name on a recently announced concert tour.

The original J. Geils Band released 13 studio albums between 1967 and 1985 and has sporadically reunited over the past thirteen years. The Boston based rockers are best known for their 1981 hits "Centerfold" and "Freeze Frame" .

Apr 13, 2012

MUSIC NEWS- Music thieves have struck again, with Tom Petty as the latest victim. Five of the rocker's guitars were stolen from a soundstage at The Culver Studios in Culver City, CA, where Petty and his band, the Heartbreakers, were rehearsing for an upcoming worldwide tour.

Missing are; a 1967 Blonde Rickenbacker, a 1967 Epiphone Sheridan, a 1965 Gibson SG TV Jr., a Fender Broadcaster and a Dusenberg Mike Campbell Model, which belonged to Campbell himself. Petty is offering a "no questions asked" reward bounty of $7,500 to anyone with information leading to the guitars' recovery. A special email address- StolenGuitars@TomPetty.com has been established to receive tips and any info should be reported to Culver City police detectives at (310) 253-6305.

Dec 27, 2011

MUSIC NEWS - Singer/songwriter/guitarist Peter Frampton has joined the growing list of performers filing lawsuits over digital music royalites. Mr Frampton has filed a suit against his longtime record label, Universal Music Group for a half-million dollars in unpaid digital royalties and for unspecified damages. Frampton's attorneys filed the suit on Friday, December 23 in a Los Angeles federal court.

The day before, on Thursday, the sister (and heir) to Bruce Gary, the drummer for The Knack, the rockers you know for their 1979 hit “My Sharona,” filed a similar suit against Capitol Records claiming the label withheld digital music royalties.

Aug 26, 2011

MUSIC NEWS- The chief executive of Gibson Guitar company has gone on record that the firm would fight a federal investigation of the guitar maker's wood imports. This comes after federal agents raided the company for the second time in two years.

Agents entered Gibson's facilities in Nashville and Memphis, TN, on Wednesday, seizing wood imported from India and sending company workers home. In an affidavit, authorities indicated they are considering charges against the company and/or its executives for illegally importing wood under a US law that bars importation of endangered plants and woods. The company's sued to recover its property.

Jul 11, 2011

MUSIC NEWS - Michael Todd, the bass player for Nyack, NY alt rockers Coheed and Cambria was arrested yesterday and charged with robbing a Massachusetts pharmacy of prescription painkillers just hours before a show.

Attleboro, MA police alledge that Todd entered the local Walgreen's pharmacy after 1 pm on Sunday and showed the pharmacist a note on his phone saying he had a bomb. Police say the 30-year-old Todd, of Anaheim, CA, then took off off with six bottles of Oxycontin and fled in a cab headed towards the Comcast Center in Mansfield, MA where the band was booked to open for Soundgarden. He was arrested at the arena prior to the show, and the band performed without him with one of the band's guitar techs standing in. Todd, 30, was charged with armed robbery and possession of a class B controlled substance.

May 28, 2011

MUSIC NEWS - As U2 makes their return to the concert stages in North America, California officials have delivered one band member a blow as the state agency that oversees coastal development has once again recommended that U2 guitarist, The Edge, be denied his controversial development plan that contains a group of mansions overlooking Malibu. California Coastal Commission staff on Friday (5/27/11) recommended that the board reject the rock celebrity's application at its June meeting.

Back in February, officials made the same recommendation before the plan was pulled from the agenda at the request of the rock musician and his develolpment partners. Back then, project manager Jim Vanden Berg said he was surprised but said he believed they could work with staff to "clarify misunderstandings." The proposal involving the NYC based rocker, David Evans aka The Edge, includes five multilevel homes ranging from 7,220 to 12,785 square feet to be built on 156 acres in the Santa Monica Mountains. The project designers said the homes will be Gold LEED Certified and the guitarist has stated the mansions will be some of the most environmentally sensitive in the world.

Jan 30, 2011

MUSIC NEWS- A legal dispute between LEONARD COHEN and entertainment lawyer Steve Machat is ending with Machat agreeing to sell the Cohen footage in question that he possesses. Machat is handing over 294 film reels that were shot in the 1970s and follow the Hallelujahsinger on stage and behind-the-scenes during his 1972 European concert tour.

The tapes were missing since 1980, but located by Machat in 2009. The footage had been used to make Bird on a Wire, a documentary about the Canadian singer/songwriter. Machat, who at one time represented Cohen, has ended his battle with the performer and will offer the reels to fans for $1,500 (each).

Jan 28, 2011

MUSIC NEWS- As MNN reported in 2009, NOAH AND THE WHALE had their equipment stolen after a UK gig. Today we get word that two men involved in the theft were sentenced (January 28). The equipment, which had been returned to the band after the incident, was stolen after they played a show at Manchester's Club Academy on September 29, 2009.

Jan 20, 2011

MUSIC NEWS - The sales globally of recorded music fell approximately 9% in 2010 as rampant piracy hurt major markets, threatening jobs, investment and the discovery of new artists, the industry's trade group, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, announced today. The IFPI said nearly 19 out of 20 music tracks downloaded from internet sites last year were illegal, hurting demand for the legitimate sales of physical and digital tracks / albums.

"As an industry we remain very challenged," the IFPI chief executive Frances Moore stated. "We are working in a very very difficult environment. Nineteen out of 20 music downloads are illegal." "We had independent research last year that says that in Europe we could lose 1.2 million jobs in the creative sector by 2015, which is about 10 percent of the work force."

Dec 06, 2010

MUSIC NEWS - AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd has been convicted of marijuana possession by a New Zealand court, reports the New Zealand Herald. Mr Rudd was arrested back on October 7, 2010 after police raided his boat that was docked at the Tauranga Beach Marina, North Island, NZ and found 25 grams of the pot on board.

Though he offered a guilty plea at the Tauranga District Court, Rudd's request for leniency was denied by Magistrate Robyn Paterson, who convicted the rocker of marijuana possession as well as imposed a fine of $250 (NZ) and $133 (NZ) in court costs on him. Rudd's plea to not have the charge on his record was also denied, with Paterson telling the drummer that his arrest was "not just an accident. You were blindly ignoring the law. You have been playing Russian roulette".

Aug 17, 2010

MUSIC NEWS- According to a recent lawsuit filed in Tulare County California, Tim Jones, one of the four singers/songwriters of the group TRUTH & SALVAGE COMPANY, was shaken awake and pulled from his bed by hotel security and local police while sleeping at the Marriott Hotel in Visalia, CA. Jones, a Marriott Rewards member and a registered guest staying the night at the Visalia Marriott in February 2010 as part of the band's opening slot on a Black Crowes tour, was handcuffed, assaulted, taken to jail and cited for trespassing and resisting arrest in his own hotel room after performing at a concert earlier in the evening.

Jul 08, 2010

MUSIC NEWS - To evolve and improve its Awards process, The Recording Academy announced changes to eligibility rules in the Best New Artist category, the Classical Field, and for Recording Academy-produced performances. The new rules go into effect immediately for the upcoming 53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards on February 13, 2011, with the total number of GRAMMY categories remaining at 109.

New eligibility requirements for Best New Artist;

New artists have at least one chance to compete in the Best New Artist category, provided that the artist has not already won a GRAMMY. The current eligibility requirements state that the artist must have released, as a featured performing artist, at least one album but not more than three; and the artist must not have been entered for Best New Artist more than three times, including as a performing member of an established group. Any previous GRAMMY nomination for the artist as performer precludes eligibility in the Best New Artist category (including a nomination as an established performing member of a nominated group.)

Jul 06, 2010

MUSIC NEWS- Australian rockers Men At Work won't have to pay out as much money as they thought for plagiarising an Aussie folk song for their classic rock tune, Down Under. A Sydney court ordered them to hand over 5% of the royalties to the publisher of the children's song Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree , a sum which could top $100,000.

Earlier in the year, an Australian court ruled that the band's songwriters, Colin Hay and Ron Strykert, had broken copywrite laws by taking parts of a flute riff when they recorded Down Under. Larrikin Music Publishing (Kookaburra... publisher) asked the court for nearly 60% of the song's royalties, but a Federal Court judge said he considered "the figures put forward by Larrikin to be excessive, overreaching and unrealistic".